Forty years after the Hawaiian Wa'a Hōkūle'a's maiden voyage to Aotearoa sparked the renaissance/revival of Polynesian wayfinding, she is once again a classroom at sea.
This time as part of an epic four year, 80,000km voyage around the Pacific with her sister vessel, Hikianalia.
The crew were welcomed to Te Tii Marae in Paihia on Friday, after a 17 day sail from Rarotonga, their last major leg for this year.
It was an emotional occasion as some crew who were in their 20s when the Hōkūle'a first arrived in New Zealand, are now the master navigators heralding in the next generation of Polynesian wayfinders.
Hawaiian PWO master navigator Bruce Blankenfeld said the movement that began with Hōkūle'a's 1985 journey has grown into a powerful revival of indigenous knowledge.
"A voyage happened. New canoes are being built, successive waves of voyagers and navigators are being trained and taught and having the opportunity to get to sea and practise those skills. It's a cultural revival."
Stan Conrad was only 22 when he joined the crew sailing from Rarotonga to Aotearoa in 1985.
He said it changed his life.
Now a master navigator for Te Tai Tokerau, he said that voyage proved what had always been true: Māori didn't arrive here by chance, their ancestors followed the stars with intention, precision and generations of knowledge.
"When I was brought up in school, I was brought up about my ancestors being accidental sailors... that never knew what they were doing. They paddled here to Aotearoa. And now what the canoe has done, just retracing and rewriting those books to correct the things that people wrote about us because they didn't know what it was like."
Listening to the speeches of welcome, from left, Polynesian Voyaging Society chief executive Nainoa Thompson, senior navigator Bruce Blankenfeld and Kamehameha Schools executive cultural director Randie Fong. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
Hawaiian PWO master navigator Bruce Blankenfeld said that revelation sent ripples through the Pacific.
Those ripples are still felt today, with a new generation following in their footsteps, picking up the traditions their tipuna once mastered.
The Moananuiākea voyage has provided an opportunity for trainees across the Pacific to hop on board and learn under different master navigators.
Blankenfeld said that kind of cross-exchange is priceless.
"The cross exchange is very important, because not all (wayfinding) knowledge sits in one school. It's a really big expansion of your knowledge; understanding and looking at voyaging from different view points. It's like going to college really."
Crew members hold the journey’s pohaku or mauri stones. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
Cook Islands PWO master navigator Peia Patai sailed on Wa'a Hikianalia for the leg from Rarotonga.
He said giving young people access to other canoes and crew dynamics is how they ensure polynesian wayfinding will live on.
"My hope is for our young ones to learn a lot because we can learn a lot from eachother, and thats what we need to do rather than going individually. It's not designed like that."
He brought a young Cook Islander trainee with him, Ngatama Tuakanagaro, who he said performed well alongside the Hawaiian crew.
"The young fella did really well, I'm so proud."
While still a student, Tuakanagaro said he feels a responsibility to ensure Polynesian wayfinding is carried on beyond his own generation.
"I came on the vaka to learn more, to further strengthen and bolster my knowledge about traditional ocean voyaging.
because I want to become a traditional navigator so our cultural traditions are never lost and are retained for all future generations."
Cook Islander trainee Ngatama Tuakanagaro sailed to Aotearoa on board Wa'a Hōkūleʻa. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Tiana Haxton
For many elders in the voyaging world, watching youth step up to the headsails is touching.
New Zealand Waka Haunui captain Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr said the future of polynesian wayfinding depends on them.
"We are all getting too old, so we need these young people to step up and do it. Theres no point in us learning how to do this and sailing canoes if we don't have young people moving in to carry on from where we step off the waka."
Hawaiian Lehua Kamalu heard the call and joined the crew, first sailing on Hōkūle'a in 2009, and becoming an apprentice navigator during the sail from Hawaii to California in 2018.
Now a navigator, she captained the challenging journey from Rarotonga to Aotearoa.
She said the relationships built between wa'a families is just as important as the voyages themselves.
"And there was certainly a time where that [Polynesian wayfinding] wasn't being passed on, so to say we're still doing it 40 years later in the modern time is quite a feat.
"It's a testament to the leadership who came in '85 who stayed with it, who forged those relationships that have become family."
Lehua Kamalu captained the Hōkūleʻa on her voyage from Rarotonga to Aotearoa. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Tiana Haxton
Schools are now following the canoes too.
Kilinahe Coleman from Hawaiis Kamehameha School said students travelling to welcome the wa'a on each of the Moananuiakea voyage legs are part of a generational cycle.
"Some of the teachers here now used to be students who first came here. Theyre now bringing the students here... We hope in another 40 years these young students will bring their students and their families back here and keep telling the stories."
She says the Wa'a brings people together.
Members of the Hawaiian youth development group Papahana Aloha ‘Āina Hawai’i perform as the sailors are welcomed onto shore. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
Students of Kamehameha Schools welcome the waka by sounding conch shells. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
With Wa'a Hōkūle'a and Hikianalia spending the next six months in Aotearoa waiting out the cyclone season, the crew will continue to share these teachings.
They will be involved in educational programs across New Zealand, ensuring the wa'a continues to be a living classroom for the future of Pacific wayfinding, before resuming the Moananuiākea voyage in April.
